1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to advertisement books, and more particularly, to computerized/automated preparation, production, publishing and management of ad-books and related print publishing frequently used by charities for fund raising.
2. Related Art
Advertisement books (used herein as “ad-books”) are fundraising vehicles whereby members and supporters of an organization pay the organization to place an advertisement (used herein as “ad”) or message in an organization's publication for the dual purpose of advertising and contributing to the group. Organizations that may use ad-books include charities, schools, teams, associations, clubs, professional organizations, lodges, unions, boards, fraternities, sisterhoods, causes, hospitals, homes, condo-boards, synagogues, events, community groups, and political party candidates. Typically, an organization will solicit members and supporters to buy an ad in their ad-book and either sell or give away the ad-books as a fundraising tool. As a fundraising tool, ad-books (and related publications) are similar to group flndraisers such as award dinners, car washes, bake-sales, raffles, auctions, golf-outings, or similar events. Each such event offers members and supporters an excuse or opportunity to contribute and help the organization raise money. Further, ad-books are often produced along with or in the form of dinner-programs, group directories, group calendars, raffles, yearbooks, newsletter, or along with other simple content or events.
Although ad-book ads are viewed by advertisers as a deductible business expense, the “advertiser's” primary economic motivation is to make a contribution to the organization as opposed to receiving quality or value for a purchase. In this sense, this type of ad is based on the advertiser's desire to support the organization (or be seen among his/her peers as supporting). Often ad-books are a part of the social fabric of the charitable community and allow donors to be recognized for their contributions. For example, a large and generous donor may be recognized in a prominent full-page, gold-leaf ad, while smaller donors may be acknowledged in smaller ads. Thus, the ad-book may be seen as a roll of givers that acts as a directory, establishes a pecking-order, and may even pressure others to donate. In this sense, ad-books give the advertiser the opportunity to be known as a benefactor.
The process of putting together an ad-book includes gathering advertisers, creating ads, collating ads, collecting money, issuing receipts, performing layout of content and graphics, and printing and distributing ad-books. Organizations that use ad-books as a fundraising vehicle usually perform these tasks by organizing committees of volunteers. Many of these tasks may be performed by the organization or sent to local businesses to assist with the production of the ad-books. In either case, the process is quite time consuming and very labor intensive for the organizations that use ad-books as a fundraising vehicle. Further, since organizations generally do not collaborate or co-fundraise, the economic benefit that arises from producing ad-books in large quantities for many different organizations is unavailable. Thus, a number of alternative fundraising ways are known and preferred to using ad-books.
In the field of pure charity, we know of at least one known reference describes a method of and device for streamlining, simplifying and inducing the giving of contribution or gift commitments by contributors or prospective gift givers that involves dispersing through a crowd of prospective contributors or gift givers a plurality of keyless, electronic contributions or gifts management devices for immediate entry of consecutive data comprising the identities of the contributors or gift givers making the monetary contribution commitments or monetary gift commitments.
Another known “charity” reference describes a method of capturing monetary donations or monetary gifts made by donors or gift givers at points in time and space in which said donors or gift givers are optimally motivated to make said donations or gifts, said donations or gifts being the donation or gift preferences of respective donors or gift givers. The method comprises inputting a multiplicity of sequences of data comprised of monetary donations or monetary gifts. The monetary donations or monetary gifts are made by a plurality of said respective donors or gift givers consecutively free of input of information unrelated to said respective monetary donations or monetary gifts at a multiplicity of distinct sites where said donations and gifts are being received.
Another known “non-ad” reference describes a central office that correlates charitable contributions made at vending stations in food service establishments which issue information carriers in return for charitable contributions which are receipts for the contribution and entitle the donor to a beverage dispensed from a machine responding to the information carrier. Yet another known reference describes a multiplicity of charitable collection stations with selectors for choosing the charity to which a contribution is destined, a change maker for issuing change if desired, a display for displaying information with respect to premiums available and contributions made, and a modem or other telecommunicator for two-way communications with a central station.
However, none of these known ways streamlines the creation, publishing, and development of ads, ad-books or related print-jobs. Accordingly, a new method and system for creating ad-books is needed.